


When a Man Hears the Call of the Sea

by fandomfan



Series: Gen Kill, Pirate!AU Style [1]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Fic(k) Fest, M/M, POV Outsider, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2012-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:56:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomfan/pseuds/fandomfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tale of the particular knowledge acquired in a certain astonishing day by one Walter Hasser, Cabin Boy to Captain Nathaniel Fick, Scourge of the Barbary Coast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oxoniensis recently bemoaned the sad lack of Brad/Nate pirate!AU in a fandom with an amazing array of AUs to its name.
> 
> I couldn't let that go.
> 
> Here is my response to her prompting. A response, I might add, that was dreamt up out of the sea and spray of my own imagination based on actor portrayals in the HBO miniseries. As the "AU" suggests (as does the term "fanfic", I suppose), this is entirely fabricated falderal. I own only the thought of it and certainly make no money from that.
> 
> (Though I have also borrowed one tiny idea from Lloyd Alexander. Thanks, Taran!)

Say what you will about the unsavory ways of pirates, but Walt’s never had it better than his current position. Though the Bosun—the rest of the crew call him Pappy, but Walt’s Ma would box his ears if she heard him use such over-friendly language with his betters—would take exception if he heard Walt using that word.

“Pirates is nowt but pilferers and ark ruffians,” the Bosun likes to say, with his special kind of homely wisdom (though Walt can’t rightly say where he hails from). “We aboard the _Bravo_ , m’boy, are more rightly termed private men of war. Privateers for King and Country. To harry slaving corsairs is our dearest deed.”

Walt’s still a mite confused by the details, but being the sixth of seven on the farm left him few options to better himself until the day the _Bravo_ ’s white Lady Athena figurehead nosed into the harbor. Walt ain’t planning to question too hard about words.

Anyway, all’s to say that Cabin Boy to Captain Nathaniel Fick, Scourge of the Barbary Coast, sounds a damn sight better than Assistant Pig Keeper, a title Walt found cause to give himself in his head back home to feel like he was in some wise important.

More than that, Captain Fick is a good man. A man worth leaving a boy’s home to follow across the waves. A man who’s kept his promise to Walt’s Ma and given him a good life shipboard with his very own chest for his things and his very own percentage of the _Bravo_ ’s spoils (“Aye, we’re honorable privateers who’d never stoop to reave nor rape,” says Master Gunner Jacks in that queer sort of way that makes Walt wonder if he didn’t maybe have a whole ‘nother life before joining up with the _Bravo_ that involved a fair bit of reaving and raping. “But someone’s got to _redistribute_ the wealth of the bastards that still go in for such barbarities.”)

Captain Fick has also kept another part of his promise to Walt’s Ma and protected Walt from the deviant approaches of some of the less savory crew members. At least, Walt is fairly certain that’s what Ma had spoken privately to Captain Fick about when they were arranging for Walt to take up a position on the _Bravo_. Walt had been asked to leave the room for that part of the discussion, and he’d done so in the company of a man he’d been convinced was a living one of the Northmen’s gods that Da told him stories about when he was small.

The frosty-eyed giant said nothing to Walt at first, just sat next to him atop the wood pile and looked at him with no aspect at all to his face, like a solid block of something frozen and cold. Walt looked back, and he figures as he did a poor job keeping his own thoughts hidden, because the giant suddenly spoke to him.

“Ask what you will, Young Walter,” he said.

Now, Walt bashfully insists that it was merely because he had never before seen anyone so tall or so blond or so calm and controlled that he blurted out, “Do you know Odin the All-Father?”

The giant looked at him, very solemn, and said, “I do not. But if the legends of my people hold true, I may meet him in Valhalla one day.”

Walt frowned. “Then, you are a human man?”

“That I am, Master Hasser. Bradley Colbert, at your service.” He extended his hand in friendship to Walt, and then his serious face dissolved into a grin, as though he and Walt were sharing a secret, and he said, “Though I was orphaned too young to know my true parents, so perhaps there is some jotunn blood in me, after all.”

That was how Walt met the _Bravo_ ’s Quartermaster, and there are some days when he has difficulty in deciding whether he’d most like to someday be as noble and brave and true as Captain Fick, or as steadfast and sharp-witted and valiant as Mister Colbert (or the Iceman, as the crew began to call him after Walt’s story made the rounds).

Most days he’s not presented with such a dilemma, as most days the Captain and his Quartermaster work in easy harmony with each other to tend to the running and provisioning of the _Bravo_ and her crew. It takes the whole team working together to keep the ship afloat and seeing a profit, and Captain Fick earns and keeps his position day upon day, as he attends to Sailing Master Person’s navigational advice (and the colorful asides that nearly always accompany it), or consults with oft-ornery Carpenter Bryan about much needed supplies to maintain the health of both the _Bravo_ and her crew. The Captain listens to each and every one of his able bodied sailors with care and consideration, and trusts them to do their work well, all the way down to the powder monkeys and the swabbies and Walt himself.

In return, Walt thinks there’s never been a sea captain less likely to be mutinied upon. There’s a hardly a single hand with a bad word for their leader. Which is why Walt is so taken aback when he comes upon John and Evan from the riggers’ crew just as Evan says something to John about, “… he was putting it to the man in Captain Fick style,” and complements it with a lewd gesturing of his hands that leaves little doubt as to Evan’s intended meaning.

Walt is appalled, and he bursts out, “You take that back! Captain Fick does not take boys to his bed!” 

John and Evan look surprised to be caught out, but they turn to each other and smirk. Evan says, in his odd patois, “No ho ho, he does not. Quite, quite right, right there, Walt.”

John adds, “Not _boys_ exactly, no.”

Walt feels as though they’ve somehow said something entirely different from what issued from their mouths. They’re both near enough to his own age, but they talk as though they’ve come by years more worldly wisdom.

“I’m not a fool! I know what ships’ captains do to their cabin boys. Captain Fick has never laid a finger on me, nor asked me for anything the slightest bit improper!” Walt is horrified to find himself near to crying with frustrated rage and indignation for his Captain.

John and Evan both look abashed. “Easy, Walt,” John says kindly. “We know Cap’n Fick’s a good sort. Would we risk our necks clambering about the spars for anyone else?”

“Screwby,” Evan adds, and though it’s nautical jargon Walt must not have learned yet, it’s clearly intended as emphatic agreement.

“And we know he don’t force you, nor any other soul aboard, neither,” John goes on. Walt calms a bit, though he still feels as though there is a thread of this conversation being woven before him that remains somehow invisible to his own eyes.

“Say what you mean plainly, then,” he demands, but the cry goes up from the fo’c’sle to reef the topsail, and John and Evan look apologetic and go scurrying away to obey orders.

Walt sighs.

First Mate Wynn will know the truth of it. He’s never had a cruel word or a breath of a lie for Walt, and if there’s one person on the _Bravo_ he can trust to ask about this—aside from Captain Fick or the Iceman themselves, of course—the First Mate is it.

When he finds Mister Wynn, he’s checking tackle on the main deck and tallying up necessary repairs on a scrap of hide.

“Might I help you with something, Mister Hasser?” the First Mate asks in the quiet, attentive way he’s got.

“Well, sir, er, that is I,” Walt is uncertain as to how this is brought up in company. “I was wondering if the Captain… Well, he’s always been so right and proper with me and… and I know men aren’t always so right and proper at sea, but… well…” he breaks off again, sure his face is red as beets.

He looks forward to where the Captain stands, tall and strong, conferring with his Quartermaster about something or other. The two of them stand close, heads bent together in conversation. Captain Fick says something that makes the Iceman roar with laughter, and suddenly something shifts into place in Walt’s mind. No one else makes the Quartermaster look so young and so free of the cares of looking after this ship. And the Captain’s face at causing that… well, the Captain looks pleased just like how Walt’s Da looked the year he’d surprised Walt’s Ma with that fine metal cloak clasp from the fair.

Mister Wynn follows Walt’s gaze, then looks back at him knowingly. “Were you going to ask me something, Mister Hasser?” he asks.

“No, sir,” Walt says. “I think I’ve sorted all that needs sorting.”

“Good then. Captain’ll be wanting his supper in a bit, I imagine,” says the First Mate with a small smile.

“Aye, sir.” Walt nods and heads belowdecks to the galley.

{}{}{}

Here’s what Walt still can’t figure later, as he’s carrying the supper tray up to the Captain’s cabin. He still can’t figure a meshing in his brain between the unkind, nasty things he’s heard from some of the crew about men who keep company with men and the way he knows his Captain and Quartermaster to be fine and honorable.

The Captain takes notice of Walt’s preoccupation, and once he finishes his meal, he says, “You’re quiet tonight, Walt. Is something troubling you?”

“No, sir,” Walt answers. “Just thinking about love is all, sir.”

Captain Fick smiles a smile that seems only half for Walt and half for someone or somewhere else. “A worthy subject to trouble a man’s mind. Might I ask if you are suffering the pangs yourself?”

Walt shakes his head, hiding his embarrassment by busily clearing the table. “No sir, nothing like that at all. We haven’t been near land in weeks, and you know there’s no girl waiting for me at home. I’ve hardly had opportunity for love, sir.”

The Captain chuckles. “I forget sometimes how little of life beyond the farm you saw before you came aboard the _Bravo_.” He stands from the table, and Walt moves to take his coat. “You’ve been aboard nearly half a year now, Walt, and you’re an observant fellow. We’ve no women here, but I’m sure you’ve noted the particular bonds between some of our crew, the matelot marks beside where they signed our articles. Surely you’ve not thought that meant purely a sharing of loot?”

Walt stops brushing Captain Fick’s coat, shocked. “The Bosun and Mister Reyes?”

The Captain nods, then waits expectantly for Walt to keep thinking.

“John and Evan?!”

The Captain smiles. “And?” he prompts without force.

Walt blushes. “Y– yourself, sir. And Mister Colbert.”

This time, the Captain’s smile is more like the tender one from out on deck earlier. “Aye, Mister Hasser. Aye. The sea can be a fickle mistress, but she’s one place where the landlocked rules of men can be loosened.”

There’s a knock at the cabin door, and the Captain calls _Come_ before continuing to talk to Walt. “Aristotle said love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. I’ve always found–“

“Now, sir,” interrupts the Quartermaster, because of course that’s who’s come into the cabin. “Poor young Hasser here needs his head filled with your ancient nonsense even less than he needs a chariot and a team of horses to pull it.”

It would be dangerously close to insubordination if it weren’t said with a degree of fondness that Walt is surprised not to have yet noticed. He feels young and silly with how much he’s failed to notice aboard this ship that he’s begun to think of as home. He’d like very much to retire and think this all through.

“If that’s all you need, sir, I’ll be off,” he says shakily, not quite able to hold the eyes of either man in the room.

“Aye, Walt, that’ll be all for tonight,” says the Captain. “You may leave us to our evening’s entertainment.” It’s something he’s said countless times before, words and inflection both, but tonight Walt hears it with newly attentive ears. Tonight it sounds laden with the promise of things dark and decadent. He glances at the Captain and his… his matelot, and then quickly away again from a shared look that matches the anticipation of that tone.

Walt gathers up the remains of supper and leaves the cabin, his head so full of things to ponder that he almost misses hearing the two voices through the door.

“I’m afraid we may have discomfited the unfortunate Hasser, Captain.”

“Perhaps, but now is not the time to dwell on that particular situation.”

“No? And what time might it be instead?”

“Now is the time in the day when you’re mine, Brad.”

Walt catches the sound of the Quartermaster clucking his tongue like a scolding. “You foolish thing, Nate Fick. There is no time in the day when I’m _not_ yours.”

There’s silence, and Walt starts as he realizes both that he’s eavesdropping outside the Captain’s cabin and that the two men inside speak to each other privately much like Walt’s Da and Ma do.

His cheeks turn red, which they seem to’ve done more today than any other day he can remember. He takes himself off to return the Captain’s dishes to the galley and then to retire to his own bunk, where he’ll think over all that he’s learned today and hopefully decipher the itchy hot feeling that’s come over him at the thought of exactly what the Captain and the Quartermaster must have been doing to stop up the easy flow of their conversation.


	2. Chapter 2

If Walt had stopped to think about it just a bit more, he’d not have run back to the Captain's cabin soon's he realized he left behind the mending. Captain Fick is forever tearing his shirt cuffs, and Walt meant to make them neat again this very evening. Only then things in the Captain’s cabin got confusing with all that talk of matelotage and the Quartermaster and Walt got confuzzled into forgetting all about the mending in his hasty departure. So now he’s going to look forgetful to the Captain and Quartermaster both, and that's a–

Oh.

Goodness.

Walt stops right up short in the passage as a loud moaning sort of noise issues from beyond the Captain's door.

 _Stupid_ , Walt tells himself. Captain's got capital-C Company. And Walt had only just left them moments before. Course they’re… busy.

His blasted cheeks heat for what feels like the thousandth time today, and he turns on his toe tips to creep all quiet away.

The thing of it is, Walt knows there's a knothole right at his eye level beside the Captain's door that gives a good view ‘cross the cabin. Ma did say about curiosity killing kittens, but if any cat’s got a life of her nine to spare, it’s the _Bravo_ ’s very own Mouser. And Walt’s never heard a noise so pleased as the one he just did, and, well, he's just got to have one look. One look and then he'll go.

But when he peeks furtively through the knothole he finds himself quite unable to take his eyes away from the sight of his Captain and Mister Colbert all… all wrapped one about the other with hardly a hair's breadth between 'em.

And they're kissing.

Only maybe Walt doesn't know kissing as rightly as he thought he did, for this that he's seeing now is as far from what he remembers practicing with Susie behind the barn back home as the top of the world is from the bottom.

The Iceman doesn't look one bit like a frigid, cold creature right now. Right now he looks fiery fierce and warm, taking the Captain's mouth under his own and dragging out more of those moaning sounds. He's got Captain Fick circled in one of his long arms, and with the other he's reaching back and gripping his fingers hard into the Captain's arse.

Walt stands away from the knothole, shamed at watching such things and even more shamed at how his yard’s tightening his trousers with its notice of the proceedings. He shouldn’t be spying on this that’s obviously private between Nate and Brad. A new wave of heat floods his cheeks as he realizes he’s thinking of them by their given names now. Christ on high, but his Ma’d be ashamed of him. Christ even higher, that’s not making Walt walk away.

No. It's not right to stay, and Walt knows his right and his wrong. He starts back down the passage. But he gets only a few steps along when he hears Brad positively growl, "Fuck, Nate, but I want to get my mouth on your cock."

Now Walt can honestly say he's never thought about men doing that one to another, and he's sure enough never had it done to him, but he's heard his older brothers talk about it like it's better’n anything. A selfishness and a thrill come over him, and with a fast glance up and down the passage—happily empty—Walt makes up his mind to stay and steal a look at how this goes.

If that weren't enough to make him break with his personal rules, then the sound of Nate’s shivering voice coming next would surely do the trick.

"You'll be my death with that clever mouth of yours," he says. And then, "Take my prick out and suck it."

Walt's never heard such language from his Captain, and over and above the way it startles him is the way he thinks that's a tone—louche and low and honeyed—that no few men would obey without question.

Walt turns again to the knothole and looks through to see Brad on his knees, unlacing the placket of Nate’s breeches with a great deal of haste. He stops a moment once the laces are loose, and rubs rough at the line Walt can see of Nate’s yard, stiff in his trousers. Nate pushes his hips into Brad’s hand like it feels filthy and good in the very best way.

“Enough teasing, you dog of the Devil,” the Captain snarls. “Take it in your mouth. I want to be fucking down your throat.” He shoves his breeches down with one hand and presses the other firmly to the back of Brad’s head, which blocks Walt’s view of his cock, but Holy Mother, Walt don’t mind none. “And Brad?”

The Quartermaster looks up, face all a-daze.

“I want it _now_.”

Walt bites at a knuckle to silence himself as Brad obeys at top speed. He opens his mouth ‘round Nate’s prick and slides it in, humming like it’s the best treat he’s ever had.

Nate guides Brad’s head forward and forward until there’s only a bit of the Captain’s yard still exposed. His jaw is tight with strain now, and the pair of them have locked their eyes together.

“You wanton, beautiful thing, my Bradley,” croons Nate in an awed whisper, and for a moment the tableau is frozen before Walt’s eyes, sacred and profane both at once. It’s all he can do not to call out, to release the tension in his body with sound.

Nate pets once through Brad’s hair. Brad arches into the touch like some great tawny cat. And then Nate leans back to brace his hips and his hands on the table behind him, which Brad seems to take as a signal, for one moment he’s stationary, and the next he’s all liquid movement, slicking and sliding and serpentining his head and his fingers along the Captain’s cock.

He looks quite practiced at this, and Nate seems to agree with Walt’s brothers that this is just about the finest thing under the sun, for his hips can’t be still, and he moans wordlessly for some time. After a few moments, he starts spilling forth such praises, and Walt’s never in his life heard a person sound so fervent and het up.

“Lord, but you’re fine. All power and strength and damn, but the heat of your mouth. God, you suck me so fucking well. Always want your mouth on me. Always. Always want to show the world how you’re mine, how you kneel for me–Christ! How you’re happy for any of it. Happy to fuck me. Happy to get fucked. Happy to take my fingers in your hole and my prick in your mouth and oh, come on now, Brad, make me spend so you can swallow it down. Do it. That’s it. Go on. Oh. Brad. Fuck. Fuck. _Fuuuuuck._ ”

To his dying day, Walt will remember how abandoned and rapturous Nathaniel Fick looks when he throws back his head and comes down the throat of the man he’s bonded himself to out of love.

Nor is he likely to forget the way, moments later, Brad stands, pulls Nate’s face between his two big hands, and licks a creamy slick of the Captain’s own fluids across the man’s lips before kissing it away between them in another ardent clashing of mouths that leaves them both panting for their breath.

By this time, Walt’s prick is fully hard in his breeches, and he’d very much like to take care of it. But Brad’s own—considerably-larger—prick is in a visibly similar state through his protruding trousers, and when Nate looks up at Brad through his lashes, cheeks flushed red and chest still heaving, and asks _How do you want to come?_ Walt knows he’s not leaving until this is finished.

Brad grins full of teeth, and says, “Take your shirt off.”

Now it’s Nate that obeys fast as you please, pulling at his shirt sleeves roughly, and Walt’s suddenly given to understand precisely why he spends so much time mending the Captain’s cuffs.

Brad removes his own shirt and unlaces his trouser placket, leaving both men in naught but boots and open breeches. Walt can’t help but think the pair of them look particularly well with the lamplight playing over all that bared skin.

“Lay back,” Brad says, and Nate follows orders as though it’s Brad who’s Captain, shifting back onto his elbows on the table.

“Now, spread those sluttish legs for me.” And Nate does, giving Brad room to step up to the edge of the table between Nate’s open thighs.

Brad holds out his right hand above Nate’s head, and commands, “Lick it.” Walt’s belly lurches in a sick, twisting flip. Nate arches up like quicksilver and laves at Brad’s hand with his lips and tongue while Brad watches in hypnotic fascination until he shakes himself and pulls his hand back.

Without so much as a pause for breath, he wraps that wet hand ‘round his yard and begins to stroke. He shudders with the pull of it, muscles clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing. When Nate wraps one leg around Brad’s hips to pull him further forward, Brad groans and speeds his pace and the shaky, loud breaths that come with it.

“Want to come all over you,” he pants. “Talk me to it. Get me there.”

Nate moans. “I swear you could stiffen a dead man’s prick. You like my talking, don’t you? Aye, I know it. Adds the spice when I tell you the filthy things I want you to do. How I want you to spend across my belly, so I can rub it into my skin. That the sort of talking you want, love?”

“Course it fucking well is!” Brad sounds harried, and his hand speeds further on his cock. Walt’s surprised to find he’s mindlessly pressing his own cock ‘gainst the wall before him, trying to ease the unbearable pressing pleasure as Nate goes on.

“Right. Then I imagine you’ll like me telling you how it feels to have you over me like this. Like I’m something small, under you, waiting on you to give me what’s owed. What I deserve. Have I been good enough to deserve your seed, Brad?”

Brad’s left hand jerks out to brace against Nate’s shoulder, his right a blur on his yard.

“I want to be a good boy for you,” Nate pouts, eyes like sin. “Good boys get what they want, and right now I want your prick to spurt all over me. Mark me up as yours. I want to be sticky with your scent. Be a bitch in heat for you. Go on and mark me. Mark me yours.”

Brad strangles a high, sharp cry in his throat and spasms as his cock empties in bursts across Nate’s bare skin. He’s held up by his one arm, panting great breaths like a bellows. Walt just about spends right along with him, has to dig a splinter into his hand to keep it from happening.

“Mmmm,” Nate hums, looking for all the world like Mouser when Cook’s given her a fresh fish for supper. “Now who’s the good boy?”

“It sure as shit ain’t you with that nasty, obscene mouth,” Brad says, breath beginning to slow.

“I have no idea what you mean, Mister Colbert,” Nate responds, affecting a look and tone of great innocence that Walt will never again believe of him after tonight. “I’d never do anything obscene.” As he says it, he slides a hand down his chest and stomach and methodically rubs the white plashes of Brad’s spending into his skin, arching and shifting into it, and eliciting an exhausted groan from Brad, who collapses down on top of Nate, burying his face in the Captain’s neck.

“How can someone with such an angelic countenance be such filthy-minded, tantalizing demon-spawn?” Brad asks into Nate’s skin.

Nate laughs and runs a hand down and up Brad’s broad back. “They say the Lightbringer was the most beautiful of all the angels.”

“Well that explains quite a bit,” Brad says. He stands and offers a hand to pull Nate to his feet and toward the bunk in the corner. “Take off your boots and come to bed, Lucifer.”

Walt’s astonished to realize that, though mere moments ago these two men were engaged in carnality so visceral that he may not ever again be able to look either of them in the eye, they’ve eased directly back into the playful affection Walt saw from them earlier in the evening. They’re powerful dear to each other, this great, strong pair who lead the _Bravo_ ’s crew.

“I don’t think Mrs. Hasser would thrill to know that her youngest son is sailing the seas as Cabin Boy to Satan,” Nate laughs.

“Satan or no, that boy idolizes you,” Brad says, warmly. They’re shed of their boots and breeches, but Walt’s mind is so overwhelmed with what he’s just seen and what this whole day has brought him and the fact that they’re now talking about _him_ that he’s got no room left to process all the bare skin and muscle before they’re both hidden away under the Captain’s bedding.

“ _That boy_ is growing into a fine young man. I thought he handled today’s newly acquired knowledge rather admirably,” Nate— _Captain Fick_ –the man’s his Captain—says, extinguishing the lamp and leaving the room in darkness. Walt was fairly sure all the blood in his body was down in the steel rod that is his cock right now, but apparently there’s still enough left to heat his cheeks. Again. He despairs of his foolish blushing.

Brad—dammit– _Mister Colbert_ —chuckles. “Aye, he did. Course, you could have furthered his instruction with a live demonstration.”

Walt freezes up. There’s no way they could have known of his spying!

But no, Mister Colbert’s remark must be merely a horrible coincidence.

“Brad,” the Captain says, with a note of amusement and disbelief in his voice. “The boy’s sixteen, and he looks the way he does. I should think it would be none too difficult for him to find a willing partner amongst those aboard for his very own live demonstration, should he be so inclined.”

Walt is shocked, though surely his reserve of that particular emotion ought to be all used up for this day.

Mister Colbert laughs. “I expect you’re right. The way Person looks at him is the way you look at books full of dead languages.”

 _Mister Person?!_ Walt thinks.

“I am wounded, Quartermaster,” says Captain Fick. “There are other things often found in this cabin—in this very bed, I should say—that I regard with a great deal more affection than my library.”

Though the cabin is too dark for Walt to see any longer, he hears the audible smack of a buss in the dark.

“My apologies, Captain,” comes Mister Colbert’s fond voice. “Now, come here to me and sleep.” There is some shifting of bedclothes, and a pair of _Goodnight_ s, and Walt shakes his head in a futile attempt to clear it from its overwhelmed state.

He has to walk rather spraddle-legged down the passage toward his own bunk, where he plans to take himself in hand and re-live as much of what he’s just witnessed as he can recall.

Or possibly think more carefully on wiry Mister Person’s sharp, dimpled smile.


End file.
